A judge has launched a strongly-worded attack on the justice system after he
was powerless to hand longer sentences to two men who left a young woman
crippled in a car crash as they fled from police.

Judge Rodger Hayward-Smith QC was sentencing Jason Young, 21, and Tyrell O'Donnell, 20, after the pair stole a car and fled police in a 100mph chase across two counties.

Their high-speed chase ended when the pair lost control of stolen Fiat Stilo ploughed into Jackie Stretton's VW Beetle.

Miss Stretton, 25, suffered "appalling injuries" as she broke her back and suffered bleeding to her brain in the horror crash and was left clinging to life in hospital.

Miss Stretton, of Maldon, Essex, whose kneecap was also broken, was airlifted to Queen's Hospital, Romford and placed in drug-induced coma.

Previously she had completed charity marathons and coast-to-coast adventure races but will never make a full recovery from the injuries she suffered in the crash in April 2012 and she now walks with the aid of a back brace.